Zathura: A Space Adventure

A rare midweek movie at the Salad Household; also a rare PG-rated
movie, which we saw without even the excuse of kids. But
it's quite good. The filmmakers did a fine job picking the
small cast, did an awesome job on special effects, and got
a script that was appropriately funny and scary. There are cool
spaceships
and vile monsters, two squabbling brothers, a hilariously
bored sister, and a brave wise-cracking astronaut. It's a big win.

If you saw Jumanji, based on a book by the same author
that this movie's based on, you can probably guess the shocking
surprise twist at the end ahead of time. But that's OK, pretend
you're a 12-year-old instead; you'll never see it coming.

Watched some extras on the DVD and was delighted to see Ralphie; he's made it big in Hollywood, and did
notshoot his eye
out after all.

URLs du Jour

2006-04-06

The House passed HR 513, the anti-free speech regulation of
so-called 527 groups yesterday. The Club For Growth is
all over the issue. My CongressCritter, Jeb Bradley, voted
for this. Right now, my feeling is that this is an unforgivable
offense.

…
after four years of failure... by the experiment of war, during which,
under the pretence of military necessity, or war power higher than the
Constitution, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every
part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the
material prosperity of the country essentially impaired, justice,
humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts
be made for a cessation of hostilities …

And asks: who said it? You could ask the Google, or
just hit the link above.
Hint: they're Democrats!

Prof Althouse has a response to an anti-blog article
by Matt Welch. As usual, she submits a well-expressed insight:

People blog for lots of different reasons, and blogging is still
burgeoning and developing. Don't cave into nostalgia for a Golden Age,
especially one that got its golden glow from the horror that was 9/11.
Things were bound to change and shake around, and some bloggers that you
liked then may put you off now. But there are always a million new
bloggers, and blogging is a beautifully fruitful format. The great power
of blogging is the way it releases the creativity of the individual
mind. That sense of not being able to predict your own opinions and
observations -- that feeling of writing to discover your own ideas and
interests -- is the great intrinsic value of blogging. There will always
be millions of individuals blogging for the sheer joy of
self-expression. Find them.

Dr. Doom Strikes Back!

… or at least his minions do.
See the interesting article
at Inside Higher Ed about the Eric Pianka/Forrest Mims controversy.
Mims has claimed
that
Pianka "enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of
Earth's population by airborne Ebola" in a speech to the Texas Academy of
Science last month. The IHE article begins:

Environmental scientists haven't been the top targets of intelligent
design advocates, who have generally focused on attacking evolutionary
biologists. But an outspoken environmental scientist at the University
of Texas at Austin — whose research focuses on the damage modern
society inflicts on the Earth — has found his work suddenly under
scrutiny from unexpected sources.

The article goes on to link Mims
to the Evil Forces of Intelligent Design.
And it quotes numerous people
to the effect that Mims has "severely distorted" Pianka's views; that
Pianka "intended no such thing". Pianka himself refused comment.

It's somewhat smelly that the major effort here seems to be the trashing
of Pianka's critics, and a lot of words expended on what Pianka
didn't mean. OK, what did he say?
Mims asserts that someone attempting to videotape
Pianka's speech was prevented from doing so. Quotes from the other
attendees are a mixed bag. For example:

"We would like to state … that many of Dr. Pianka's
statements have been severely misconstrued and sensationalized," David
S. Marsh, president of the academy, said in the release. "The purpose of
his presentation was to dramatize the precarious plight of the human
population. He did nothing more than apply commonly accepted principles
of animal population dynamics to humans; an application not unique to
this presentation and one that can be surmised by any student of
ecology."

So Professor Pianka was simply bemoaning the "precarious plight"
of humanity?
Hey, nothing wrong with that! But contrast:

John Hanson, a biology instructor at Texas Tech University who attended
the speech, said that at no point was Pianka literally arguing that
"humans are bad and we need to go away." "Rather, he was talking about
human impacts on the environment," said Hanson. "From a
nonanthropomorphic point of view, it probably would be best for the
planet with less humans."

No precarious plight seen there. It's all about what's "best for the
planet". And Dr. Doom Pianka wasn't literally
advocating mass human extinction. Really. It's just that the planet
would be better off afterwards.

It all sounds much like the blind men expounding on the nature
of the elephant. Except everyone's yelling at the one guy who's got hold
of the trunk.

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